Fate/Far Side: Synchronized Body
Chapter 9
Hopes Together
It was like swimming in acid, a constant burning sensation until everything melted, dissolved, and then reconstituted to begin the process again. The sensation was present before, in that haze after being struck by Kouma the first time, and it made sense that it would exist when consciousness fled.
Somehow, though, the sleep in Kohaku's embrace had been dulled, though.
If it was like an acid bath, the presence stood atop it, a mere toe in the pain, hovering over me like a demon at night readying to smother me in my sleep.
It said, Get up, so you can fail again.
Peering at it finally gave it form. It shaped itself into the one vessel we were both familiar with, both understood. A teenage girl with unnatural hair and sad eyes. She lowered herself to her knees and looked over me from above, appearing upside-down within my vision.
Senpai, you can't stay there, or you'll just die.
The world around me was no longer simple darkness, but the dank, cold, eerie loneliness of a cellar. The burning was less like liquid fire and more like the sensation of things moving over me, through me, burrowing through skin and gnawing on muscles and fat, tearing as they dragged along my chest before diving in to feast on everything beneath. Each felt the size of a small animal, the size of a juice box or a cell phone, yet they dug into invisible pores, one for each gap along my body regardless of whether I could see it with the naked eye.
It was a hell Tohsaka had not allowed me to see, had only vaguely described. She had raided the Matou mansion while I was still stuck in an unresponsive ether body to find materials to sell for the Aozaki-crafted device I lived in now. We had pieced together what had gone on with the Matou after the fact, and, maybe in some ways, not knowing exactly what it was that had lurked beneath Shinji and Sakura's daily lives was worse than knowing in full.
"You made it through alright," I mumbled. Or maybe I said it normally, but my own voice sounded muted.
Only to die elsewhere, consumed again and again.
"I failed you," I said, again muffled by something. Or maybe it was more like distance—my body was something I was technically remote-controlling, after all. Maybe here, with the curse of Angra Mainyu torturing it, I could only watch from afar, feeling it but unable to fully connect with it. That distance made me only feel even more sick, reminding me that I was less human and more puppet now. A feeling she must have felt too, in her last moments.
The figure above me nodded. She reached down to cradle my face with her hands. Though the burning sensation was just the same as before, the darkness melting away my body over and over, something there was different, though, beneath it all.
Get up, Senpai, so you can fail again.
Even in the darkness that surrounded me, I grabbed hold and pulled.
The blow was like nothing I'd ever felt, and I'd been burned to a cinder and skewered by bladed bugs. It decimated the old structure of the mansion, plowing me right through the floor, the framework, and all the insulation. But in that, somehow, I still managed to keep a grip on his arm, so when I went careening down into the floor of the first story, he came with me. And though he still had some control, though he still had the strength to take it fine, somehow, in all of that, I'd managed to twist us in such a way that we both took the hit, so he couldn't tumble out or slam his body into mine to finish me.
Wood and dust and all manner of old building materials fell around us. The ground caved slightly where we hit, snapping part of the wooden floor but stopping short of the support beneath. Kouma, though on the back foot by the impromptu ride, still reacted with superhuman reflexes and spun along the floor to catch me in the gut with a kick, sending us both sliding in opposite directions, me like a shot projectile, him like a fueled open flame. I hit a wall and, maybe because of some kind of fight-or-flight response in me, leaned into it to stagger up as fast as possible.
Only to get hit back down. Kouma rebounded off the side of the main foyer staircase, rolled forward and with the force of his motion drove another kick into my solar plexus. I couldn't tell if the crack noise that sounded was from bones in my body breaking or the wood framing of the wall giving way behind me. I do know that I dry-heaved and fell face-first into the floor, completely unable to catch myself.
More than the pain from the curse was the pain from knowing the curse only fought with the truth. Lies were mere counterpoints to what was real, and the truth hurt all the more for the context lies gave it.
A shadow consumed the girl who had always brought morning with her. She died alone, thinking her sister had abandoned her. I would never know the full extent of her torture, of how she suffered every night after I sent her home.
I could have saved her.
The shadow whispered, Get up, so you can fail again.
Spots of black bubbled through my vision. I managed to half-crawl, half-roll away from another strike. Kouma's fist smashed into the floor where my head had smacked the ground hardly a breath later.
Pushing past the pain and shock and confusion, I conjured up the image of the first weapon I could think of. Probably because of Kouma, the first thing I thought of was the giant stone sword of the Berserker Servant, something I associated with both pain and relentless assault. It formed in hands much too small to grasp it fully, though I created it ready to strike, over my head, gravity giving me that extra boost. It came down on the demon before me faster than I could have ever done myself, the speed of the swing straining my muscles even to keep up.
Kouma took the swing full-blow to his right shoulder. The wooden floor beneath his feet cracked and cratered, he flinched for the first time from the sheer mass—
The weapon broke apart like crumbling earth.
The red haze that had turned the man's hair crimson flared up until it was like I had just sparked a fire with stone flint against his steel body. He flew to me in the backdraft of the swing—
A darkness was where another girl walked so she could protect someone she hardly knew. She died alone, thinking her father had betrayed her. I would never know the full extent of her anger, of how I had stolen the love and attention she should have received.
I could have saved her.
The darkness sang, Get up, so you can fail again.
There was a hole in the wall. Fire was beyond it.
I didn't remember hitting the floor, but I dragged myself upright anyway, using the sofa as a handhold.
My body creaked and kept reverberating like struck iron bars. I didn't think I was actually hearing anything, though, so much as feeling it and my ear drums picking up on the vibration. Whatever was outside of my body wasn't making sound any longer unless that sound was the white noise of a waterfall.
The Great Fury of Ireland, Moralltach, weighted my hand as I readied for the next onslaught. It killed many beasts of legend in the hands of its owners—
This beast plowed through the opening in the wall until it was a wall no longer, whipped right up to my left and slammed into me with a rising uppercut. The swing I responded with missed him completely, and in the haze of pain I remembered somewhere that one owner of the sword had actually been gutted by a great boar despite the weapon having killed many other creatures.
Burning heat followed me, or maybe was with me the entire time. His fist had felt like it was literally on fire, so maybe my body had been seared.
An emptiness took one other girl who carried the weight of distant dreams. She died alone, both here on a simple mistake, and there under the crumbling eaves of her world. I would never know how to answer the dilemma she had presented to me.
I could have saved her.
The emptiness ordered, Get up, so you can fail again.
He looked confused, his one eye staring at me in incomprehension.
I could hardly even see him. Blood was flowing over my eyes. Even without that, my vision was wavering, and not from the heat haze he seemed to be giving off.
"Do the spirits of the afterlife not know your name?" he said. Somehow, his quiet voice made its way all the way past the noise of my own body.
Kanshou and Bakuya flew through the air even before I realized what my muscle memory was doing. The demon moved up and crouched beneath their arc as another pair spun toward him from the front, forcing him to leap up and over. I charged forward on heavy legs and tried stabbing a third pair into him, but the weapons merely broke against his chest. He kicked, but my own forward momentum brought me beneath his strike—
He landed behind me and must have twisted at the waist, slamming an elbow into my back.
Unaware of loss, nor aware of gain. Logically, I knew that I had lost them, but it really did not register in my mind as a tragedy for me. It was a tragedy for them, because they had other things to live for, and I could have given them that opportunity. It was a tragedy for their loved ones, for the ones they had already lost, for the ones that had believed in them and depended on them. What they were to me was so irrelevant compared to what they were to others, what they were to themselves, what they could have been for any number of people.
But they died alone, knowing I was unable to save them.
The voices all echoed, maybe even caused the reverberation from my body, Get up.
The unused bed to a room I had been in only once caught me as I flew from Kouma's last attack. I repaid it by bleeding all over it. I spat a lot more liquid than air as I tried to regain control of lungs that felt pierced. Blood kept cycling up my throat with each breath I tried to take until all I could taste was that weird metallic bitterness only the dead could enjoy.
Everything in my vision was shuddering. I couldn't tell if my eyes were finally refusing to keep steady or if the house was in fact wavering from an earthquake. Even the pictures I kept trying to concentrate on in my mind's eye wavered. Tunnel vision was also creeping up, so it was something like looking through a set of binoculars and constantly fiddling with the focus.
Kouma kept after me, jumping through the hole that had once more appeared in the wall. I rolled from the bed to the floor and tried to throw the mattress up and obscure his vision, but the entire thing caught onto me or something near me. It buffered me as the meaty fist crashed into my body once more, plowing through the cushion and blowing it apart. The padding slowed the strike just enough that I merely staggered backwards instead of taking flight, through the doorway and into the hall.
He was after me in an instant, his foot coming around, confined by the tight quarters of the hall. It grazed me, tearing skin right away from my body, and I dove aside and crashed myself into Kohaku's little entertainment center next door.
But…
Even if it is just a curse, I was glad to see you again.
Even if your image is smiling at me writhing in agony…
I can suffer anything if it means you really would be okay. And…
Get up.
He loomed over me before I could pick myself out of the detritus of furniture and decoration. His fist came up to smash my head flat. I could only raise my arms in a token defense.
There's another girl that I've met…
She's a victim that I met in the spring.
She's a damsel like fair Lorelei.
She's a dragon that wants to curse her own existence.
I gave her an umbrella before I knew I wanted to save anyone.
But she knew, somehow, and…
Get up, Senpai!
Prana that should not have been there fired up through my nerves, roaring like—
—A lot like—
The blow was repelled by the swords jutting from his bones. The iron skin and vermillion power met the body of swords and fire-born blood.
Kouma's hand came away with blood that was not mine. Multiple abrasions lined his knuckles.
My world was attempting to keep my body in one piece. Paradoxically, it was also tearing my body apart. Blade-like scales had replaced damaged skin. If disruption of my natural state had started to occur, the doll structure of my body would probably be entirely replaced by this reality attempting to correct itself like the real world always did to abnormalities.
The demon made an animal noise and raised his other fist.
His body was pierced by a thousand blades. He charged forward, unaware of anything.
I hit him. I pulled up and slammed my shoulder into him. He couldn't punch across and behind his body, so he couldn't strike my head. I hit him and moved, pushing, until I had thrown him through the wall, breaking through support struts and insulation and all sorts of things that would have maimed or killed a normal man.
Even with blades protruding from my body, he brought a knee up and bunted me clear. I hit the floor and tore it up, scraping everything into garbage and dust. I probably resembled a meat tenderizer more than human.
Kouma came at me, forgoing all pretense at martial skill. He raised his uninjured fist behind his head to strike me with all the power he could manage—blades be damned.
Withstanding each blow, the weapons torn from his body were replaced by more.
I raised an injured fist to meet his, blades protruding from it like a disturbing metal knuckle. Our fists met and I felt things shudder inside—not bones breaking but swords snapping.
His greater force sent me skidding back further down the hall and into another living space. Metal clattered between him and me as part of me broke down and came off, and looking down at my hand I could tell that his iron skin had pulled weapons right from my very existence right out of my body. It made me appear like some sort of metal reptile that was shedding scales—
Like living creatures, more blades crawled out of the gaps in my body, once again covering my hand and fist.
He may never hold close to him the happiness he sought. But if they were smiling, even if he lost them—
Kouma once again tried to leap in and drive his fist—now cut up like he had, in fact, put it through a meat grinder—into my head.
I rolled aside once until the blades caught the floor like the world's strangest climbing pick. Using the jerking motion from that, I drove up to my feet and grabbed him around the shoulders, clawing into him with protrusions from every part of my body. My feet carried us up and across the room until I could do what he must have been doing to me—
He could continue endlessly—
We crashed through one wall, into another room, and then hit something more solid that stopped our momentum. Kouma buried a fist into my left shoulder and I felt things tear, but my body spun with that force until I had come around with my own fists and punched with my whole body.
The stone and brick wall that had stopped us before did not do so again, and we crashed through.
The girls, all three of them, had moved to the safety outside of the house. They saw the explosion through one side and chased after it, to see the demon and the boy both outside.
Something like an animal roared from their direction, though it sounded nothing like either of them.
I tore up the back patio of the house as I stumbled away, my feet still carrying me like I was still pushing the monster-man further from the house. When my knees made noise like the cargo door to a semi truck, my legs locked and I swayed in place, forcing myself to turn around.
Kouma staggered back against the part of the wall that I had not plowed us through. He moved warily, off-balance, almost like an injured man. I was sure, though, that it could not have been simply due to the cuts I had made to his body nor the trauma of being tossed around. He still did not breathe heavily, did not look like he was being worn down—
But something shifted in him, like he was no longer in full control.
It didn't matter, in the end. If I could get the moment I needed, that would be enough. Despite all the nerves in my body starting to go haywire, despite the crushing pain that made it hard to breathe, there was still one thing I managed to wrap my mind around.
It should have been gone.
It really should have been gone.
If the curse was the only thing that kept me conscious, that made me keep getting up, the roaring inside me was the only thing that gave me any energy left to fight. The source of it all was gone, destroyed, but somehow, beneath everything else, there was still—
The image in my head was rapidly fading. It was, in fact, I'm sure, completely wrong and absolutely nothing like it was before. But the energy deep inside was just enough, the flow that had kept the image perfect amidst all the other imperfect copies, it still, briefly, for the last time it would ever be a part of me, managed to power it. Just enough, just barely enough.
I couldn't even lift both arms to grasp the golden sword. I couldn't even pull myself completely upright. I could only raise the weapon above my head with one hand and, at the figure with a halo of red, swung with every nerve in my body screaming at me to stop.
The slash was nothing like it had once been. Rather than a tsunami of golden light, it looked more like something out of Kohaku's video game, the one with the guy and his oversized sword. It generated less of a blinding flash and more of a bright flare, striking Kouma across the chest and throwing him back into the house—
Which lit up briefly, a haunted mansion suddenly backlit by a streak of lightning.
Footfalls came up behind me and hands, multiple hands, touched me at my shoulders and back, clearly afraid I would keel over right there. Those hands then gripped tighter as the house rumbled—something I could feel but couldn't actually hear—and although everything in my vision shook as my blood kept pumping, the house did look like it was now moving on its own, not because I was just going crazy, and suddenly one side was caving in on itself—
Like my body could independently sympathize and respond to that, I felt my legs finally give way and the organs inside of me start to fail. Blades retracted from flesh and bone, giving way to wounds like I had just been thrust onto a bed of needles. The Reality Marble withdrew from my internal structure and gave way to the destroyed body beneath.
I fell back into what I thought was Kohaku's grasp, her arms encircling my shoulders, and though she started to speak, I couldn't hear anything beyond the rush of sensory overload as my body tried to regain its normal functions. I attempted to watch her expression, aimed to understand what she was saying by vision alone, but my eyes seemed to overclock and everything went into such sharp detail that it hurt.
I wanted to know…
Wanted to know if she would be able to smile again…
But I couldn't keep my concentration up, couldn't keep my eyes open, and finally just allowed myself to stop worrying for one moment.
Synchronized Body, Hopes Together, End